Countering Irish Republican Terrorism in Britain: Its Origin as a Police Function

Abstract

This article examines how the gathering and utilising of intelligence and evidence concerning acts of terrorism by extreme Irish republicans on the mainland of Britain in the 1880s became formalised as a police function. The gathering of intelligence concerning potentially violent political groups became a police function in the UK almost from the establishment of the first organised police force in 1829. It was used to pre-empt violent public disorder and to inform the government of the alleged “revolutionary” activities of exiled foreign nationals. From the 1860s onward it was also used to counteract potential terrorist activity by extreme Irish republican groups. A succession of bomb attacks launched by extreme Irish republican groups from 1881 onward prompted the Secretary of State for the Home Office to introduce in 1883 an additional, de facto “Secret Service” to assist the detectives of the already extant Metropolitan Police “Irish Bureau” to deal with them. This action forced a resolution to the question of whether the police or the new civilian “Secret Service” had the authority to take action to counter these groups. The decision came down firmly on the side of the police, thus establishing a domestic counter terrorism framework that would not be revised radically for over a hundred years. The police lead in the intelligence and investigative structures and systems on the British mainland was therefore a consequence of government policy and did not occur arbitrarily.